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TV is a bitch. It seriousy is. For anyone wanting to get into media, it’s the first choice. Firstly, because it offers easy money. And secondly, because there are so many idiots around that you get to make your mark easily. That is if you can inspire yourself enough to give the best in an atmosphere which has loads of sleaze and internal politics. Yes, it’s a big magnetic field. It does attract a lot of good talent but immense amount of junk too. For me, i always wanted to make movies and saw television as a stepping stone towards that. Extremely stupid. Now, this could hold true in the west where a lot of the content created for television is top notch. There is
loads of creativity. The crew works as a professional unit. Moreover, a lot of stuff still is shot on 16/35mm so graduating to films is not …

Two directors from the “Far East”, known for their visually stunning cinematic delights and two films that mark some what of a turning point in their careers. For Wong Kar-Wai last year was finally a time to test the Hollywood waters with his first English language film “My Blueberry Nights”, and Ang Lee went back to his roots directing the Chinese war period, “Se, Jie” (Lust, Caution). Now, while Wong-Kar-Wai has seldom strayed from his trademark visual style and patented haunting-romantic melodramas, Ang Lee has probably tried his hands in all genres. Fantasies (Crouching Tiger), CG’s (Hulk), taboo relationships (Brokeback Mountain, The Wedding Banquet), literary adaptations (Sense and Sensibility).. you name it and Lee has been there, done that. And so is the case with the directors’ latest works. While Blueberry Nights is just an extension of Wong Kar wai’s earlier works, Ang lee continues to explore unchartered …

As always I wasn’t really too pleased with the Oscar nominations this time around. 2007 was an awesome year for films but lot of great films which should have been there weren’t, including the best foreign picture category (”Lust, Caution”, “Persepolis” and “4 nights, 3 weeks and 2 days” missing). Hoffman being nominated for Charlie Wilson’s War and not for Savages or Before the devil knows you are dead. Into the Wild being treated a pariah. And so on and so forth. The same was true when the awards were announced today. A lot of unexpected winners. However just like last year the greatest redemption came in the best director category. Coen brothers who have been snubbed on more than one occasion in the past (imagine Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink and Miller’s Crossing not even getting a nomination) winning the best directors statuette for “No country for Old …

Four years ago two friends who had just started their careers realised that their true passion and interests lay elsewhere and decided to do something about that.(sounds familiar???) Fast forward 2008. While I’m still stuck with my shitty job at a media company, my friend is already through with a couple of drafts and plans to shoot his first feature film in the mid of this year. Since it’s a micro budget film, it would be self financed in case we can’t find any producers. But here is the big dilemna now - whether to shoot it on Super 16 or HD (HD Camera preferences - F900 / HDX900 / Varicam). Yes there are loads of resources on the net to reach for help but the more you read, the more confusing it gets. So where better to pose this question than here at PFC.

some more details about the film

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Reading the critic(s) reviews, fellow PFCian blogs and Anurag’s comments over the past few days has been a tremendous experience. I wonder if we in India have ever had such an intense debate over the worthiness of a film. But then there never was a PFC. I am sure that this whole discussion will continue for some more days. It’s not the first time that a film with which cine-goers had so much expectations from, has disappointed (atleast for a majority). It’s not the first time that the audience found it hard to make a sense of the movie and it’s not the first time that the critics have unanimously panned a movie. I would have loved to see Anurag humbly accept that he went wrong with the film just like Kevin Smith did with “MallRats”. Instead he has gone the Ram Gopal Verma way proclaiming how he doesn’t …

Spielberg once said, ” Making a war film changes you.” Well I guess watching one does too. It’s an amazing feeling to experience what the humanity has gone through to make this world what it is today. Sitting in the dark theatre watching all the bloodshed with your eyes moist, you cannot help but think the kind of courage, valiant effort and determination that these guys exemplified.

As with everything else, Hollywood has been a front runner in producing superbly executed war movies and the initial ones can be traced back to the silent era when the focus was much on civil wars(Birth of a Nation - 1916). However it wasn’t until the first world that truly great stuff documenting the perils and horrors of war started coming out. The most notable among these was “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930)

Then came the Second World War and and once the …

This has probably been one of the most terrible starts to a week. The world has lost two great filmmakers - Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, each of whom influenced the world cinema in their own unique ways. As one of the critics truly said - ” the last links to the golden era of European art films are no more”. To top it all Sanjay Dutt has been put behind bars for six years.

The moment I heard of Bergman’s death, my thoughts wandered away to his first movie that I ever saw. I was 15 and had pleaded my 5 year elder cousin to take me along to a friend’s party. Among the haze of marijuana, music and who-was-banging-whom-talks there was a 21 inch television in the corner playing a VHS tape. The film wasn’t even in English, was subtitled and mostly set in one place. I wasn’t allowed …

I recently had a great opportunity to view a three episode BBC series by eminent journalist Jonathan Ross on the Japanese, Korean and Hong Kong cinema. The episode on the Japanese cinema started with “how it has started losing its sheen in the recent years,” which got me thinking and is the reason of this article. Now, I know there are a lot of people here who are huge fan of the world cinema. I have come across people who swear their allegiance to French new wave, Italian neo-realism, Iranian movies and all the so called ‘new waves’. For me however, Japan has always been the mystic land. I love its culture, its people, all the ‘made in Japan’ gizmos… but more than anything else I love its cinema. Like most others my initiation into the Japanese cinema was through Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. Though my diet also included arthouse …

It’s really amazing the countless number of times that I have been told that the cinema has always got to be meaningful. MEANINGFUL ??? Yeah, so what really is meaningful. Is it a dark, brooding film that always ends in tears or is it that artsy film ending with almost always a social message. Well, get hold of a kid down the street and for him Dhoom 2 would be meaningful too. For a comic-book enthusiast a Spiderman, 300 or a Sin City would be very meaningful. Come to think of it, if you really want, you can pick up even a mindless flick, twist it in your own way and get meanings out of it.

“What are you saying man?? Tell me how was Spiderman 3 meaningful??” Well.. Good wins over Evil.. always.

“Yeah??? So how was Hera Pheri 2 meaningful??”.. Ummm… idiots can be winners too..hah

Ok, on a more …

“That voice in my head, everytime I think it’s gone…. it comes howling back
Calls me when I’m ailing; when I can’t find my way home
Lost in the pines
I call it the Black snake Moan”

and so goes the electric guitar strumming Samuel L. Jackson in the recently released “Black Snake Moan.” It’s hard to imagine a trigger friendly gun man (Pulp Fiction is probably Jackson’s most iconic role till date.. This movie might change that) as an aging, God-fearing ex-blues musician. But Jackson is simply superb as a retired musician and now farmer, Lazarus, trying to come to terms with a failed marriage. What can be more painful than losing your wife to your brother? When he finds the town’s nymphomaniac, Rae (Christina Ricci) by the roadside - all beaten up and bruised , he takes her under his wings, determined to treat her of her wicked ways. The …